There are welcome rereleases of two favourite films of mine.
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo (1970) is a gloriously wild, over-the-top tale that puts the gory into allegory. It’s a surreal, biblical spaghetti western with a strong shot of Zen, made mainly in Mexico, partly utilising the Tombstone set of the John Sturges western Hour of the Gun.
Stephen Frears’s Prick up Your Ears (1987), adapted by Alan Bennett from John Lahr’s biography of Joe Orton, also embodies the wild spirit of the 1960s.
Gary Oldman is uncannily accurate as Orton, Alfred Molina is unendearingly sad as his jealous lover Kenneth Halliwell, and there are lovely performances from Wallace Shawn as Lahr and Vanessa Redgrave as famed literary agent Peggy Ramsay.
